The Alice To Your Wonderland
by girlinshipwreck
Summary: The First Doctor makes a discovery that will change his fate forever, irrevocably altering Vivien's future as well. {One-shot, AU}.


**The Alice To Your Wonderland**

_The least important things, sometimes, my dear boy, lead to the greatest discoveries..._

- The First Doctor

* * *

><p><em>November, 1990<em>

Alice's Wonderland arrived in her back garden with its familiar wheeze. But Alice didn't await its arrival. Instead, Alice slumbered in the embrace of her mother's roses, sweet sixteen forever, the teacups and plates, relics of her lost tea-party, lying scattered amongst the long grass. The Mad Hatter stepped out from between the blue doors of Wonderland, armed with the expectation of tea and cake. It would be a pleasant interlude in between trying to return teachers to their right time, and filching clothes from bazaars during the Crusades.

But then he seen Alice asleep in the arms of death, and life was no longer a fairytale spent with golden-haired girls with secrets in their eyes. The Mad Hatter was an illusion, and like all illusions, he faded away. He was just an old man with time tainting his bones; time that took away those golden-haired girls with something of Susan in their smiles. He knelt down beside her, his fragile fingers reaching out to what was left of his old hearts. Then he closed her eyes so she looked as if she was dreaming, dreaming of all he could have showed her. Then he turned and walked back into Wonderland.

But Wonderland no longer existed without its Alice, his Alice.

* * *

><p><em>September, 1996<em>

An eccentric old man with silver hair and a sarcastic soul, found himself wandering amongst the aisles of a supermarket in the twentieth century. He needed bananas. Originally he'd intended to go to a favourite alien grove, but the TARDIS had had other ideas. So here he was, trundling about Safeway, enduring the invasion of his privacy by primitive CCTV. It was a pity. His old bones would have enjoyed basking in the warmth of a foreign sun.

The Doctor had landed in a decade he'd fled from six years before. Upon realizing this, he'd had to sit down for a few minutes. This was the decade Alice had - He'd closed his eyes, scrunching them up tightly. And then he'd opened them again, chiding himself for being so cowardly. It was just a year in an unfamiliar decade. It wasn't going to bite him. But still he had to take a moment to compose himself.

He could have awoken one of the humans to accompany him, but some instinct had stopped him from doing so. The TARDIS landing in this time and period didn't make any sense to him, but when did it ever? He'd say Grep and she'd go Grop. _He_ was supposed to be in charge but sometimes, rather humiliatingly, he was relegated to the position of back-seat driver. And so off he went with the old girl, humouring her whims despite the confusion and alarm they created on occasion.

Sometimes he wondered if that was the problem, indulging and spoiling her too much. She seemed to disregard his decisions of where to go more and more now, taking off to where _she_ pleased instead. But a voice in his head whispered that this little detour might not have been a whim on the TARDIS's part, but rather another excursion to - The Doctor quickly batted that thought aside. It might be a trip, but it wasn't one of _those_ kinds of trips.

_Then why did you not wake Barbara, Ian or Vicki so they could come with you? _the voice questioned slyly. _You always embark on those trips alone, when they sleep, and_ _here you are again, on your own, creeping around, looking rather creepy_.

The Doctor tried to ignore the voice. _It wasn't one of _those _trips, _he told himself again. It was too far in the future for that. 1990 had been the furthest these trips had taken him. And it had also signalled the last of them. He pulled at his cravat, almost clinging to it. She would have been twenty-two this year if she had lived. Instead of being here, he could have been drinking a cup of tea with her, maybe watching that interesting contraption called a television. They could have laughed at all the little people who lived inside the box.

But she was dead and he was here, searching for bananas. _Those blasted bananas. _His eyes were beginning to blur threateningly so he tried to distract himself with all he knew of the twentieth century. His own experience, so far, was rather limited. There was his brief time spent on Earth in 1963. Some scattered trips between the 1950s and the 1980s thanks to the peculiar curiosity presented by Alice. And then that fateful day in 1990...

He stopped walking, pretending to be absorbed in a display of toilet rolls. Surreptitiously, he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. _You foolish old man! _he scolded himself, _get a grip! _Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of happy things like dolls and bowling balls and balls of string. But all he could see was Alice smiling that smile, and it hurt and made him happy all at once. _She would be a young woman now. Maybe she would have had a family, children he'd have dandled on his knee._

As he stared at the toilet rolls, his mind flickered through all his memories of her. The first time he'd met Alice had been in her garden. His grand-daughter had grown up and left, pushed into her future by him. It had been for the best of course, but it didn't stop him regretting his actions. Everywhere he went, he missed her presence by his side. So he'd picked up Vicki as a sort of surrogate Susan. She helped fill that particular void in his life. Yet his old hearts continued to ache from time to time for what he had given up.

Then Alice fell into his world.

She had been five years old, holding a tea party with her teddy and dolls. He'd tumbled out of the TARDIS, clutching his cravat and blinking at the bright sunlight. He'd been expecting Hoi and got some chit's vegetable patch instead. The girl had been undisturbed by the fact that a blue box had just appeared out of thin air, landing amongst her mother's daisies. In the face of her serene acceptance of him, the Doctor had gathered his scrambled wits together and sat down, squashed between Mr. Bear and a headless doll.

They'd had tea - _pretend _tea that tasted just splendid - and discussed the state of the nation. Toyland to be precise. Barbie had just become Prime Minister or something. And then off he'd gone, peculiarly happy. And from then on, he met Alice in all sorts of places. He'd land in 1981 and there she would be, walking along the pavement with her mother. He would smile and nod at her when her mother was looking the other way. She would smile at him, Susan's smile, and off he'd toddle back into the TARDIS, peculiarly happy once more.

_Perhaps humans weren't so primitive after all,_ he'd thought.

Time passed and Alice grew up in glimpses. Sometimes she was twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Other times she was six, seven, eight. And always she would be somewhere in between. Every time he looked at her face, he felt he had bypassed some important part of her life. All the things that happened in his absence, in the wake of his abrupt departures and arrivals.

She shared what she gained in knowledge, telling him of her small world. Her family. Fairytales. One particular favourite story was _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, and to his delight, (and confusion - he didn't know what _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland _was or was about), she christened him her Mad Hatter. In fact she'd baptized him with a tea-cup of tepid rain-water. Later, after an insightful conversation with Barbara and Ian about children's literature, he'd sought out a copy of the book, one that was quickly read and followed by others of its ilk.

The Doctor became au fait with all things fairytale. He relished talking about the characters as if they were real people, much to Barbara and Ian's secret amusement. They didn't know what had inspired him in that direction, but it had helped their bond with the Doctor become deeper as he began to understand humanity more. He didn't treat them like cavemen as much. But back then, Alice was a problem, a delightful, wonderful problem, but still a problem nonetheless. Her existence had to be kept secret. The trips to the twentieth century had to be cloaked in secrecy as well. _This_ the TARDIS had made clear to him.

As he'd continued to bond with his time machine, he'd quickly learnt she had a mind of her own. Never mind _him_; _she_ was the one who wore the trousers in this relationship. Where she led, he followed. _Sometimes... Maybe... Well... Most of the time. _And so she'd led him to Alice and a whole world of secrets. These trips were not to be shared with anyone else. And so he kept silent and let his companions sleep on.

But then he'd started going further back in Alice's timeline, to before she was even born. He would find himself in 1955, 1966, 1971 and all which lay between and after and before. And he'd quickly discovered the reason why: Alice's mother. From child to teenager to woman, he seen it all commence in the same unpredictable fashion he had seen her daughter's life unfold. The problem Alice presented grew bigger, one he had become reluctant to resolve. It would have meant deliberately steering his way into Alice's life. The TARDIS had rumbled alarmingly at this idea. And then he'd pointed out that the humans would have to be informed. It wasn't something that could be hidden from them anymore. The whole story would have to be told -

The TARDIS had blown a gasket, quite literally. He hadn't even known she'd had one. Her rage was understandable though. She was supposed to have been trying to return the teachers to their own time and failing in every attempt. Telling them about the conundrum that was Alice and her mother would have meant exposing all the times he'd been nipping in and out of the Sixties whilst they slept.

The Doctor hadn't particularly wanted to tell them either. He had been rather sure they wouldn't understand the situation he was in. All his prejudice against those he considered lesser than him had risen to the surface. They were human, primitive. And they would get all human and hate him. Rather than seeing the bigger picture, they would just focus on the fact that he and the TARDIS had deceived them. Again.

They did have a point though. After all, he'd been the one to abduct them, the TARDIS working as his accomplice. She'd knocked Ian out.

But that was beside _his_ point. The conflict would begin all over again and that was the last thing he'd needed. Once he'd accused of Barbara of sabotaging the TARDIS. He didn't want to think of what she'd say when she found out he'd been the one sabotaging their return home. He'd also accused _them _of trying to blackmail him into _taking_ them home. Now the shoe was on the other foot.

_He_ was being indirectly blackmailed by the TARDIS into _not _taking them home. But Barbara and Ian wouldn't listen to his side of the story. They would just see it all as another form of abduction. They wouldn't see that his deception had stretched beyond concealing Alice and her mother from them. They wouldn't realize that he didn't want them to go home. Not just yet anyways. He had, to his surprise, become rather fond of them. They were his last link to the days of Susan, when they'd all travelled the universe together.

He picked up a packet of toilet rolls, studying it. If he was being honest with himself, he hadn't wanted them to stay just because they were a reminder of the past; it was also because their presence was beneficial, enlightening. He could see the glory of the universe through their eyes, from a different angle altogether. They were teaching him in a way that couldn't be learned from books and papers.

They were showing him how to appreciate humanity with all its flaws and imperfections and beauty. But most of all, they'd taught him how to understand Susan better, why she had been so interested in the Earth and all it held in its green and blue landscape. It made him feel like he could hold onto her a little longer. Maybe one day they'd meet again and he'd tell her about Alice and Wonderland and taxis and shoe laces...

His mind wandered back to the TARDIS. She had failed to reach her destination too many times and yet she could actually reach it if she wanted to. If she could reach the plotted destination on occasion, how couldn't she do the same on others? It wasn't her antique condition or temperamental systems or following a whim that led her off course, he was sure of that. When it came to Alice, there had been a purpose, a pattern to her actions…

If he was to be even more honest with himself, the suspicion had been growing in him that whilst he followed the TARDIS, she had been following someone or something else altogether. Perhaps that explained why she could find the Sixties with such ease when it came to Alice's mother. Yet when it came to Barbara and Ian, it had been a whole different story. Nothing was leading her home for them. With such doubts in his mind, he had begun to conceal his thoughts from the TARDIS. There was more to the situation that she was showing him.

She was only revealing things bit by bit to him. There was something she was hiding, a very big something. She was following some kind of path unknown to him, one she wouldn't let him explore. For some reason, she wasn't leading him to straight to the source. She didn't want to. Perhaps she was just using her reluctance to let the others become involved as a front for not letting _him_ become more involved that he was already.

If he did, the power would be taken out of her hands. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

This riled him for a number of reasons. He was supposed to be the one in charge, not her. He was the one who fixed her when all her systems buckled under the strain of time travel. He was the one who sorted out the navigational systems when she couldn't. He was the one who was the expert, the guide. He was the only one who could fly her! Yet she was starting to nudge him aside, flying herself to wherever _she_ wanted.

He knew it was childish to think like this, but he couldn't help it. In spare moments, he sometimes formulated plans on how to outwit her. Something along the lines of what he'd plotted on Skaro. Perhaps he could remove the fluid link again. It had given him the perfect excuse to explore what was out of bounds to him before.

Yet here he was, clutching a packet of cheap toilet roll like grim death. The Doctor put it back with the others. Perhaps it was a good thing Vicki wasn't here after all. She would have been bored to tears by the place. There was no Nero to thrill over or anything. And he had to agree with her. It was all about as interesting as watching paint dry. Using such an expression cheered him up slightly. He was learning the lingo. _Lingo!_ Yet another human oddity to add to his collection!

Spurred on by this small success, he wandered along the aisles, searching in vain for something eye-catching and interesting. He would even settle for a humble banana. But there were no bananas, only blandness. The trolleys and tills alarmed him with their squeaking and clatter. Where were the Tudors? The French Terror? Where was the glamour and gore that piqued his initial interest in Earth? He wanted to see history in action!

He dodged out of the way of somebody's shopping basket. There was no history to be found here. He watched somebody drop a bottle of olive oil and listened to some brats screaming for chocolate biscuits, sighing heavily as he turned away from the horrific sight of snotty noses and dirty finger-nails. But he knew trips to Earth could be tedious. After all, he and Susan had spent five months at 76 Trotter's Lane, doing damn all apart from him tinkering about the TARDIS and Susan attending Coal Hill School -

Somebody tugged his elbow. He looked down, frowning. It was a very small somebody. A little girl to be precise, about five or six years old or maybe somewhere in between. One with no manners, if he were to judge by the impudent way she was goggling at him.

"What are you looking at, child?" he asked, annoyed.

"Nofing," the creature replied, still staring at him.

"Well, it can't be nothing, can it? You're here, looking at me and pulling at my arm!" he blustered. "What do you want? A dinosaur? A crystal skull? Some marbles maybe, hmmm?"

She just rolled her big blue eyes, making him narrow his own in return. She was neglected. He could see it in her apparel, in the faded _My Little Pony_ print on the front of her t-shirt and worn-out knees of her jeans. They screamed hand-me-down but not of the familial kind. It seemed to him nobody cared about how she was clothed, as long as she was, and with the barest minimum of decency. Her tiny trainers were scuffed to within an inch of their lives.

But her clothes couldn't hide the impact her dramatic colouring made. Rather they just emphasised it even further. Poverty plainly couldn't extinguish what nature provided. Her hair was very black, a tangled mane that fell past her thin shoulders, contrasting strongly with her eyes, which were all the brighter against her porcelain-pale skin. She was small and scrawny but she possessed a certain invincibility despite her apparent frailness. It might have had something to do with the fire burning in those eyes or the confident stance she unconsciously took.

"Where's your mother?" he said sharply.

She just stared at him.

_"Where-is-your-mother?"_

"She's dead," the creature said simply.

"I'm - I'm sorry," he stammered, wrong footed by the grief that suddenly struck his two hearts like an arrow. All his bitterness against the child faded away like starlight. She shrugged her shoulders but the gesture didn't fool him. A part of him knew that what he felt, she felt. Their grief bound them together.

"Your father, then?" he asked abruptly, trying to disguise his discomfit.

Silence.

"Are you lost?"

"No!"

"Why are you bothering me, then?" he said half heartedly, trying to edge away from her.

"Wait here," the creature ordered, pointing at him with an authority that defied her years. As she ran off, he wished for a nice comfy chair and a pouffe to put his feet up on. He was getting too old for all this...

With a sigh, he tried to focus on his surroundings. Baked beans and toilet rolls, _how depressing. _The annoying squeaking of trolley wheels. The dire music playing from the speakers. All he had wanted was some bananas. Not some tiny personage turning up out of the blue and telling him what to do. For someone so small, she was utterly terrifying -

Something brown and furry leapt at his face. He jumped backwards, clutching his chest. As he recovered himself, he saw that his attacker was nothing more than a scruffy looking teddy bear. Clutching its worn leg was the creature, proudly holding the toy aloft as if it was the Olympic Torch. But then he did a double-take. _It couldn't be... _But there was no mistaking the missing eye and bow-tie around its neck. The bear was Mr. Bear. _Alice's_ Mr. Bear.

"Where did you get him?" he breathed. Mr. Bear had been the honoured guest of a hundred tea-parties with Alice and her Hatter. He'd poured tea and discussed the weather with him.

The creature scowled.

"You gave him to me!" she said.

"When?"

"Yesterday."

He took a step backwards.

"Yesterday?"

"Yes," the creature replied. "My foster mum ran out of nappies for the brats, so we had to come here to get some."

"Did you get them?" he found himself asking, becoming slowly entangled in her world.

The creature suddenly looked shifty. "Ummm, I don't know. I... wandered off."

"Like now?"

The creature looked even shiftier at that. "I'm _supposed_ to be guarding the trolley... But I followed you instead. I did leave Mr. Bear to protect the milk though!"

"Mr. Bear is here. You went away and brought him here to meet me," he tried to point out gently. _Human children had such short attention spans..._

She looked at her toy in surprise, proving his point. "Oh. Well, he _was_ protecting the milk. But somebody might have kidnapped him so it's better he's with us."

The convoluted workings of her inchoate mind were starting to confuse him. And the way she said _us _with such confidence disturbed him. As he looked down at her tiny face, his hearts twisted in his chest. Was she...? Could she possibly be...? He hadn't even known Alice had been... There must be whole passages of her life he'd missed. A terrible thought struck him. Unless... Unless there were pages of her life still to be read by him...

He stooped down, resembling a wizened old fairy-man.

"How did you know his name was Mr. Bear?" he asked.

"You told me," the creature replied, shocked at his ignorance.

The Doctor slowly straightened up. Teddy bears and time machines. Oh how he lived for these moments. Neverland and Wonderland. Lost Girls and Alices. Mad Hatters and Mr. Bear. They were all stories in the end but they lived forever. They lived forever in the young.

His Alice lived on in this little girl, this creature with her ebony hair and police box blue eyes.

And with that thought illuminating his old hearts, he turned and disappeared into the crowds, searching for yesterday.

* * *

><p><em>November, 1990<em>

The Doctor parked his police box on the corner of a street. It was the street where his Alice lived. His Alice with the sprinkling of Susan in her smile. He stepped out of what she used to refer to as Wonderland, the blue doors closing behind him with a soft click. One couldn't cross personal time-lines. Apparently. But here he was, crossing them. Or was he more _fulfilling_ the time-line?

He ran, an odd, jerky grace punctuating his movements. A grandfather chasing pavements. He vaulted over the garden gate, grief and glee lending him youth as he half-raced up the path. Grief she was gone; a tainted glee that she lingered on in the creature. But he faltered as he neared the front door. It was ajar, the sight filling him with foreboding. Was someone else here? He knew he wasn't, having left an hour before, the time of departure etched on his soul forever. 13:59. November 28th, 1990. The exact moment he had fled from facing his loss. Running away like he always did. But now this old man was walking into the jaws of what he had lost, and in its darkest depths he would find his redemption.

Hesitantly, he pushed the door open. It swung wide in unwelcome, the hinges creaking resentfully. The Doctor stepped over the threshold, his hearts beating in double time. The stifled atmosphere Alice was forced to live in struck him afresh. No wonder she haunted the garden. One couldn't breathe in this tomb. And everything was clean, too clean. The genteelly shabby hall, with its fading wallpaper and worn brown carpet, was empty. He didn't have time to check all the rooms, only the one he'd come for.

Whoever had left the door open seemed to have disappeared. It might have been himself. It might have been Alice's death. It might have been both. As he made his way to the stairs, he pretended Alice wasn't lying amongst the roses in the back garden outside. Step by step he climbed, wringing his wrinkled hands the whole way. He knew he should have done - no, _do_ - something more for Alice. His last act for her had been to close her eyes, so it looked like she was merely sleeping. And then he had run away, consumed by a grief that had bewildered and terrified him. But now he was back, in a position to do _more_, to do _something_ other than run.

Meddling came naturally to him. Wasn't that the very reason Braxiatel had been about to erase him from history for? So why wasn't he meddling? Why wasn't he doing something? Anything at all! His TARDIS had disguised herself as a police box. He was aware that the police were a sort of primitive law-keeping force on Earth, using such police boxes to contain criminals. So what was stopping him from summoning this - this _police_ for help?

The Doctor paused on the landing, bowing his head. He couldn't, he just couldn't. He couldn't go out there again and see what had become of his Alice. All that beauty and potential, gone, stolen. It could have been Susan or Vicki lying out there. Instead it was Alice, she had taken the fall. He should be investigating her death, how it happened and what had caused it. But he was too frightened to take this action. _What if - what if her blood was on his hands? _he thought. _What if he was responsible for her fate in some way, directly or indirectly? How could he live with such a burden, as well as such a loss?_

Whispering a silent plea of forgiveness, he wandered down the hall. Led more by instinct than information, he found himself standing outside a room positioned at the very back of the house. As he poked his head around the door, he realised it was a sort of box room cum makeshift nursery, judging by the second-hand looking crib and other various maternity implements. He had found what he had been looking for.

As he stepped inside, he saw traces of Alice everywhere in the little touches she'd given the room. He knew it had been her, she who always tried to make the world more beautiful. She'd tied red ribbons around the wardrobe handles, keeping the uneven doors closed. He didn't like the wardrobe. It looked more coffin than wardrobe. And it was blatantly too big for the room, carelessly shoved into a corner so it was out of the way.

A drinking glass, almost the colour of the TARDIS, held captive a plastic daisy. She'd placed it atop a set of scarred cream coloured drawers, trying to create some cheer amongst the beige. And there was a lot of beige. The carpet. The walls. He could go on. But he didn't. There was no need to add further beige, even verbally, to the room. He was practically drowning in the colour. He pulled open one of the drawers, revealing piles of neatly folded baby clothes. They were old and well used, probably more cast-offs, but they'd been lovingly washed and ironed. He closed the drawer with a deep sigh.

The heavy brown curtains kept the bright sunlight at bay, creating an island of gloom. It felt like another world. From the moment he'd stepped through the doorway, he'd instantly disapproved of the place. It needed light, laughter. Not this darkness and beige and sterility. It wasn't suitable for stimulating the growing mind of an infant. It wasn't Alice's fault, he reminded himself, his gaze falling upon the childish daisy once more. Her mother was...

He didn't know how to phrase his thoughts of Mrs. Holmes without causing offence. For starters, he didn't really know her, any information he had was gleaned from observing and listening. Once he'd had the misfortune of sharing a bus seat with her. She was a large and capable looking personage; handsome looking with dyed blonde hair and heavily made-up green eyes. Nor was she that old, late thirties or early forties at least.

But her behaviour on that day had formed the foundation of his opinion of her. Negative. Judgemental. Oppressive. Hypocritical. She was a person who liked to project the image of being fair and moral, but in reality, was warped in her principles and ethics. She'd criticised those who wouldn't give him a seat, but when it came to moving her handbag cluttering up the space beside her, it was a different story altogether. But she'd done it, complaining all the while. The gesture pretty much epitomised her essence. She would do the right thing, albeit in the wrong way.

He was aware that she'd had a hard life; after all, he'd witnessed most of it from a distance. Bullied at school. A father who beat her. A mother who drank all the money away. Dropping out of school. Working in a launderette. Living in a bedsit, half starving. The boyfriends who mistreated her. Marriage. Pregnancy. The struggle to attain respectable poverty. A daughter instead of a son. The husband who died. And now this, an unwanted daughter with an even more unwanted grandchild at her mercy and living on her charity.

Trying not to judge her was a Herculean task of will. Normally he wouldn't waste tact and diplomacy on anyone. But she _was_ Alice's mother. Yet, then again... He didn't... He wasn't fond of her to say the slightest. But she was human and life had altered and disfigured what she should have been. And now life would alter her further. She would come home from that launderette and find her only child's body lying amongst the roses. And upstairs, another child would be waiting, waiting for an uncertain future.

Maybe there would be someone else to take care of her, another member of her family. He couldn't. The TARDIS was no place to raise an infant. If she'd been older, perhaps he could have done something... Alice had spoken of a grandfather, her father's father but... The creature had spoken of a foster mother. There would be no family for her. No mother or father. Not even a grandmother or great grandfather. For a brief moment he wondered what would become of them, the woman who had so unwillingly gave him a seat on the bus and the grandfather Alice had mentioned.

Had Mrs. Holmes given up the child to the authorities? Was her father-in-law unwilling or unable to do his duty by his son's only grandchild? Or was Alice's death one of many deaths? Were her family fated to die soon after her? Was the creature's father dead too? He'd never seen hide or hair of him. The same went for all the other male members of the Holmes family. He'd never set eyes on them, not even once. Unless they were something he was still to witness...

The Doctor took a step back, his mind reeling slightly. There was nothing he could do for the child. His hands were tied. What he didn't understand was why he was here, why he had been here all along. All he knew that Alice was dead. Her mother would come home to find her daughter gone forever. And at the heart of it all was the creature.

His aged hands curled into claws. He looked around, feeling trapped. It was too dark in here. It felt suffocating. He couldn't breathe... In one swift movement he tore the curtains open. Blessed light flooded the room. He inhaled deeply, relishing the brightness. He tugged open the curtains a little wider. But the rattling of the curtain rail provoked a weak cry from the crib he'd been so carefully avoiding confronting. Now the moment had come to face his redemption.

The Doctor walked slowly, ever so slowly, over to the crib. A tiny, tiny infant looked up at him with big, blue, blue eyes. There was something steadfast in their expression, something that steered his soul to stiller waters. At the foot of the crib was the perennial Mr. Bear.

As the old confronted the young, he didn't realise how much he would come to rely on that look in the times to come; to be guided by a glance. For now though, it was merely a case of hopping back in his time machine for another twirl through time and space, returning her teddy bear to the little girl she would become. But he remained rooted to the spot, caught. He leaned further over the crib, face curious.

"Hello," he said.

The infant merely waved minuscule hands at him. Saying hello in return, perhaps. If he were judging correctly, the child would be about nearly a month old. At an age to start discovering the world. There was a little furrow between her eyebrows as she studied her surroundings, trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. But it disappeared as she gazed at him again. It was as if she knew him. _But that was a preposterous thought!_

"Hello," he said again, trying to gain a deeper response. But all the creature did was gaze at him more, all wide-eyed, kicking her legs and waving her arms about as though trying to catch his attention.

"Yes, yes," he said irritably. "Of course I'm listening!"

The creature made a strange noise, almost like a laugh.

"My hair isn't funny!" he protested. "Nor do I look like a be-winged _thing_. And my nose is _lovely_! And – and _distinguished!_"

She just kicked her legs a bit more. The Doctor smoothed down his hair as he tried to smooth down his ruffled pride. He shouldn't get upset over a few observations on his personal appearance. She was a mere infant, intellectually challenged. This was an opinion he held of all mankind but he supposed he had to make exceptions for the younger members of humanity.

"But do you _know_ me, hmmm?" he asked.

The infant just looked at him with that same steadfast expression from before.

"I believe you do," he said slowly. He held out his finger to her, musing on what could have been and what should be. The infant looked at the proffered digit with benign interest before suddenly grabbing it. To his own astonishment, he laughed; a laugh that echoed throughout the silent house. He could almost feel the place stirring, awakening in the wake of his merriment. This house needed to live, to become a home. For the sake of the child, for the sake of the girl who lay dead outside, it needed to come alive.

But the rooms fell back into slumber again. It was as if they knew Alice was dead; that her child wouldn't be welcomed within their walls. And the creature looked at him as if she heard the silence too, as if she knew she wouldn't remain under this roof for much longer. She had nothing and she would have nothing. She needed to belong to someone and he supposed he did too.

"I think you're mine now," he whispered. "Another stray..."

She clung to his finger even more tightly, still staring at him with those eyes filled with the sky.

"And I believe I'm yours," he said thoughtfully, studying her features, trying to find some future trace of the ragamuffin she would become; some aspect of Alice herself. But of Alice there was nothing. The creature was her own person: a smattering of coal coloured hair scattered over the surface of her fragile skull, lily white skin stained with pink and a tiny rosebud mouth that promised to be wilful.

Disappointed, he carefully detached his finger from her hold. Immediately the creature's face crumpled, mouth flying open, ready to squall in protest. He just _knew _that mouth promised to be wilful... Raising his eyes heavenwards, he held out his finger again. She grabbed it, chin wobbling. _What was wrong with her, _he thought, becoming annoyed. He'd given her back his blasted finger, hadn't he?

Stopping short of slicing it off, he didn't know what else he could do to keep her happy. But he had no intention of becoming some infant's comfort blanket, not at his age anyways. Helplessly he watched her tiny face contort - _please don't cry! - _into a wide array of shapes. Then she sneezed, a baby bubble of sound. A surprised expression filled her features and then she smiled a smile that chased away all surprise, uncertainty - a wobbly, gummy smile but a smile nonetheless. It was Alice's smile with that sprinkling of Susan through it.

Alice lived. She lived on in her daughter's smile. It decided him, there and then. "Yes, little one, I'll look after you..." he promised softly. For Alice, he would promise her daughter the stars.

"Good-bye," he then whispered, unclasping her tiny hand from his. He stooped down, dropping a butterfly kiss on her brow. Her smile faltered, fading away. The Hatter picked up Mr. Bear, holding it to his chest for a moment as he remembered the tea-parties and a girl with golden hair that glowed in the sunlight. But they were yesterdays now; they held no place in this child's todays and tomorrows. All that was left were memories, memories that weren't hers.

But as he looked at Mr. Bear, he knew he could give her this one, this lasting memory of her mother and all she had been.

The Hatter turned and walked away. But as he reached the door, he stopped.

"Goodbye," he murmured, "Good-bye and hello little one. Yes, yes, good-bye and hello..."


End file.
